Lions Club helps Stuttgart students celebrate Liberty Day Friday

The Stuttgart Lions Club, who has been participating in Liberty Day for the past 12 years, distributed booklets to students at Grand Prairie Christian School, the fifth-grade class at Holy Rosary Catholic and students at Meekins Middle School.

Liberty Day, which observes the birthday of James Madison on March 16, was celebrated Friday as the Stuttgart Lions Club distributed booklets of the Constitution.

The Stuttgart Lions Club, who has been participating in Liberty Day for the past 12 years, distributed booklets to students at Grand Prairie Christian School, the fifth-grade class at Holy Rosary Catholic and students at Meekins Middle School.

"This is a tradition of the Stuttgart Lions Club," Dave Straus, president of the Stuttgart Lions Club, said.

North Arkansas County District Judge Jeremy Bueker was the special guest at Meekins Middle School and presented a program on the importance of the rights of citizens in the United States.

"It is important for the students to realize the rights we have in this country," Bueker said. "Everyone is presumed innocent until a person is proven guilty."

Bueker informed the students that the judicial branch of the government, which includes his court, goes up the ladder of the court system to the United States Supreme Court.

Liberty Day, which was founded by the Lions Club of Denver, Colo., began in 1996 as a tremendous need in the schools for supplemental resources regarding the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.

Along with being a signer of the Constitution, Madison was Secretary of State under the administration of President Thomas Jefferson and introduced the Bill of Rights to the House of Representatives in 1789. However, he did not sign the Declaration of Independence.